Teaching Critical Thinking and Academic Writing Skills to Japanese University EFL Learners

Abstract

This chapter looks at a critical thinking and academic writing skills course designed for Japanese learners of English. The study presents two sets of data from the 87 participants who have taken part in the course since its inception in 2008. The first data set is concerned with actual writing samples from multiple drafts of a medium-sized research project carried out by the student participants. The second data set results from a self-assessment survey given to the learners both at the beginning and end of the 15-week course described in this chapter. Further, results from a satisfaction survey given to learners at the end of the course are presented. The chapter concludes with some pedagogical implications for both Japanese and other Asian EFL learners and how the methods used in the course described within can be replicated elsewhere.